The Misconception (20 page)

“What exactly are you trying to say?” she asked.

“Hi, neighbor.”

Marietta covered her face with hands that shook. “This can’t be happening. Please somebody tell me this isn’t happening. How can this be happening?”

“Simple. The last time I was in town, I noticed the place next door was for sale. Tracy recommended a Realtor. He called the owner, told him my offer and, voila, I had a townhouse. We don’t close for another couple of weeks, but he’s letting me move in ahead of time.”

“Tracy?” Marietta gazed at her sister with huge, betrayed eyes and sank into one of her kitchen chairs. “How could you do this to me?”

“Maybe I did it
for
you, Mari,” Tracy said, backing out of the kitchen. As she passed Jax, she patted his shoulder in what felt like a gesture of support. “I’m going to run some errands. What you have to talk about doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Don’t be angry at Tracy, Marietta,” Jax said the moment the younger woman was out of earshot. “I would have bought the townhouse even if she hadn’t recommended a Realtor. All she did was have the courtesy not to hang up when I called, which is more than I can say for you.”

Marietta didn’t reply for a long moment, giving Jax an opportunity to study her. Instead of one of her customary tent dresses, she wore an unstructured shirt and slacks every bit as ugly as the tents. They were also black, a color that bleached her already pale skin and highlighted the dark smudges under her eyes. She’d secured her hair so firmly to the back of her head it looked like rubber balls could bounce off her taut temples.

If the timing had been different, Jax would have talked her into engaging in horizontal rapture. He might as well derive some pleasure from the predicament she’d thrust him in, even if, judging from the set of her jaw, the next few minutes wouldn’t be particularly pleasant.

“Why are you doing this?” Marietta asked.

He gave a short laugh. “What did you think I was going to do after that little stunt you pulled on ‘Meet the Scientists?’”

“You saw that?”

“Of course. You were so excited about going on the program that I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Tell me something.” She screwed up her forehead as though the answer really mattered. “Did you notice anything untoward about the way I looked, especially at the end of the show?”

An image of her avocado-like face came back to him, and he realized she was asking if her nausea were obvious. He nearly told her that only somebody with a black-and-white television could have missed the green hue of her skin, but he didn’t see what purpose that would serve. Especially since she’d managed to convey her ridiculous beliefs quite succinctly.

“You looked fine,” he said.

“You didn’t think I looked, well, sick?”

“If you’re talking about morning sickness, it’s a perfectly natural reaction. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve been reading up on pregnancy, and nearly half of all pregnant women have morning sickness.” Jax expected Marietta to interrupt him, but she didn’t, which encouraged him to go on. “Just hang in there. It’s supposed to go away after the third month, which means you’re about there.”

“You’ve been reading up on pregnancy? Why?”

He shook his head at the question. “Because you’re pregnant, that’s why.”

“But my pregnancy has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me, which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is why I’m here,” Jax said. “If you had listened to anything I said the last time I was here, you would have known that. You certainly wouldn’t have gone on television spouting that
Motherhood Without Males
mumbo-jumbo.”

“It isn’t mumbo-jumbo. It’s a well-thought out response to the realities of evolutionary biology and the strides today’s professional women have made.”

“It’s mumbo-jumbo. What would you say if I got on television and jabbered on about
Fatherhood Without Females
?”

“That’s impossible. You can’t have one without the other.”

“Which is exactly my point about
Motherhood Without Males
.”

“Then you weren’t listening very closely to what I said on the show.” Her multi-colored eyes narrowed. “A mother does not need a father in order to raise her child.”

“When it’s my child, she does. You should have thought about that before you picked me to father yours.”

“I didn’t pick you. You. . . you. . .” Her face grew red as she tried to come up with the right word. “. . .
infiltrated
my womb.”

The assertion was so ridiculous that Jax couldn’t help smiling. She obviously hadn’t considered the way she’d disrupted his life with a pregnancy that was, to him, completely unplanned.

Hell, she probably even thought he
wanted
to marry her when all he wanted was to provide his child with the best possible atmosphere in which to grow up. If she came as part of the package, so be it.

“If you think I’ve infiltrated your womb, wait’ll you see what I do with your life.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked with a show of bravado, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her.

“You’re the one with the high IQ. You figure it out.”

He turned and walked out of her townhouse, but not before he caught a glimpse of her stricken face. Damn it all if he didn’t feel sorry for making her look that way.

Chapter 14

Her heart beating hard, Tracy Dalrymple Caminetti slipped out of the front door of the townhouse and pulled it shut very gently behind her.

Even though Marietta was still at Kennedy College and wouldn’t be home until much later, Tracy felt more like a sneaky teenager trying to pull one over than a twenty-five-year-old woman heading out to meet friends at Paddy’s Pub.

She smoothed down the skirt of her clingy red dress, the one that had never failed to make Ryan bug-eyed, and noticed that her hands were shaking as much as her heart.

A part of her very much feared that Marietta was right and having any contact with Ryan was like inviting him to unclasp the safety pins that barely held her together. But the alternative — to never see him again — was worse.

Marietta kept a wrought-iron chair on the townhouse’s tiny porch, which Tracy had long thought looked about as comfortable as a porcupine’s lap. Tonight, Tracy sank into it, heedless of comfort, thinking only of whether she was doing the right thing by going to Paddy’s.

The pub was in neighboring Arlington, just a few miles from the charming little house she’d once happily shared with Ryan. He still lived there and still met with their friends at Paddy’s while she’d left that world behind. Should she risk going back, even if only for a night?

At least, this way, on the fringes of Ryan’s life, she’d be able to satisfy the constant thirst she had to drink in the sight of him. She bit her lip so hard she almost cried out, because the craving she had for Ryan no longer seemed reciprocal.

That day in the beauty salon, when she’d given him the world’s worst haircut, she thought his passion for her might have survived their split. When their eyes met in the mirror, she felt as though she’d been zapped by lightning. She’d spent the week leading up to the Black Eyed Peas concert trying to figure out what to say when he asked her to take him back.

Not only hadn’t he asked, he hadn’t even taken the seat next to her at the concert. He’d treated her, in fact, no differently than he had the rest of his friends. She’d had to content herself with stealing glances at him while the band played on stage.

She glanced down at her red dress. It fairly screamed “Notice Me,” which she supposed was the message she wanted to send. But did she really want Ryan Caminetti to notice her in the way that once sent her knees trembling and her heart knocking? Did she really want to open herself to the possibility of all that pain again?

Was she really brave enough to put herself on the line — again? Was she even courageous enough to walk into Paddy’s Pub without knowing for certain what she’d find? He said the gang from the concert would be there. That included Anna Morosco, who stole as many glances at Ryan as Tracy herself did. Maybe Anna would be there in a clingy red dress, trying to get Ryan to notice her.

Tracy put her hands to her face, which felt hot even though the temperature had dipped below sixty. She didn’t know whether she could do this.

The faint sound of lively piano music seeped into her consciousness, surprising her enough that she dropped her hands. The tune was coming from the newly occupied townhouse next door. She cocked her head, trying to identify it, smiling when she did.

“Gray skies are gonna clear up. Put on a happy face,” she sang with the music. “Brush off the clouds and cheer up. Put on a happy face.”

She smiled as an idea struck her. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go to Paddy’s Pub alone.

Before she could change her mind, she skipped down the stairs leading from Marietta’s door to the sidewalk and skipped up the ones leading to Jax’s. Then she picked up the ornate brass door knocker and let it fall.

Jax pulled open the door a few minutes later, smiling at her with what seemed like genuine pleasure. The music had stopped, which could mean only one thing.

“Was that you playing the piano?” she asked, delighted at this new knowledge of her neighbor.

“You heard that?” He made a face. “Okay, I admit it. I needed a break from unpacking so I was practicing. But I wish you had heard ‘Hello, Dolly’ instead. I’m just learning ‘Happy Face,’ but I play a killer ‘Dolly.’”

She giggled. Asking him to help her wasn’t going to be as difficult as she imagined. “Jax? Remember when you said you owed me a favor for finding you that Realtor?” He nodded, his smile still in place even though he was knee deep in half-empty boxes. “I was hoping I could take you up on that tonight.”

WHAT IF TRACY didn’t show up?

Ryan blew out a worried breath and looked at the clock that hung on the wall over the worn green felt of the pool table. Ten minutes to ten, two minutes later than the last time he’d checked the time. He was sure he’d told Marietta to let Tracy know the gang was meeting at Paddy’s Pub at nine.

Considering how Marietta felt about him, maybe he shouldn’t have trusted her to pass along the message. The last time he saw Tracy’s sister, she told him he was worse than a pied flycatcher. Her meaning was a mystery to him until he consulted an encyclopedia and found out the pied flycatcher was a polygamous bird.

Marietta could definitely have clipped the wings off his plan to win back Tracy’s trust. But what if Tracy herself had decided not to come to Paddy’s, because it reminded her of the good times in their marriage? What if she’d seen enough of him to last a lifetime? What if she didn’t still love him with the same searing intensity that burned inside him every time he so much as thought of her?

What if their marriage really were over?

“Hey, Ryan. You gonna throw that dart any time soon, or is it permanently attached to your finger?”

Ryan forced himself to stop thinking about Tracy long enough to regard Anna Morosco, whom he’d known since she was a freckled-face, pigtailed second-grader. She raised a brow at him as she cocked a hip. Her hair was short and sassy now, but he still had the urge to tug on it, stick out his tongue and sprint away before she could catch him.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that patience was a virtue?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” she shot back, sucking on the end of a finger and blinking her heavy lashes at him. Had she accidentally smashed her finger or was something in one of her eyes? “And procrastination a sin.”

Not able to help himself, he did stick out his tongue. He risked another ultimately disappointing glance at the door before he eyed the center circle, drew back the red-tipped dart and let it fly.

It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a clunk.

“No offense, pal, but you stink tonight.” His best friend George, an ever-present Nationals hat pulled so low his eyes were barely visible, gave off a laugh as hearty as he was round. George owned the other half of Ryan’s construction business, but the hard work they both insisted on sharing hadn’t shaved any pounds off his large frame. “You sure don’t look like the house champ. House chump is more like it.”